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Pushback: Kroger must pay $180K to two Arkansas workers, fired for refusing to support the queer agenda

Kroger's rainbow heart apron

Bring a gun to a knife fight: To settle a lawsuit Kroeger has agreed to pay $180K to two Arkansas workers whom the company had fired when both asked to be excused from wearing company aprons that included a rainbow heart that they believed endorsed the queer agenda.

Workers at the store got the new uniforms in April 2019 that included a rainbow heart embroidered on the top left portion of the bib, according to court documents. Both of the workers believe the “literal interpretation of the Bible,” held “religious belief that homosexuality is a sin” and “sincerely believed the apron violated (their) religious beliefs,” according to the lawsuit.

One employee asked to wear their nametag over the logo. Another asked for a different apron. Both employees were fired within two months.

The image to the right shows an apron with this rainbow heart. While some suggest this heart has nothing to do with promoting homosexual rights, the company’s strong advocacy of the queer agenda says otherwise. From Kroger’s own website:

At The Kroger Co., we embrace diversity and inclusion as core values, and we ingrain these in everything we do. We proudly support our LGBTQ+ friends and family, and we’re proud of being named Human Rights Campaign Company of the Year in Greater Cincinnati.

The Kroger promotional video at this website is especially blunt about its support and advocacy of the queer agenda, under the guise of “inclusion” and “diversity.” It shows the company’s enthusiastic participation in a gay pride parade, including its own float with very young children included.

Kroger’s embrace of “inclusion” however did not include these two Christian employees, who were both fired simply because they expressed a dissenting view. As a result, the company now has pay both for violating their civil rights.

As part of the settlement, announced Thursday, Kroger has also agreed to develop a religious accommodation policy that will provide guidelines for workers seeking consideration for their beliefs. The company will also provide training to adhere to the policy.

Anyone who thinks this company is now going to treat its Christian employees fairly, however, is living in a fantasy world. Consider for example this exchange between Kroger’s CEO Rodney McMullen and Senator Tom Cotton at Senate hearings this week:

It is very clear from McMullen’s responses that he has no interest in protecting the rights of Christians, even after this settlement. The company will go through the motions, but based on its very clear pro-queer promotional materials, it will likely make life very uncomfortable for any practicing Christian or Jewish employees.

That he is now also asking conservative Republicans to help make possible the company’s planned merger with Albertson’s is, as Cotton makes clear, the height of hubris.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

15 comments

  • Bob Wilson

    I liked Senator Cotton’s ironic final remark: “I am sorry this happened to you. Best of luck.”. On the merits, it seems to me that allowing these two large grocery chains to merge would reduce competition and increase prices for consumers..

  • Ray Van Dune

    Bob Zimmerman, just a bit – the spelling in the headline should be “Kroger”, as it is in the text of the article.

  • wayne

    Q: is Arkansas a right-to-work State? Is there any mention of what the Kroger Union (UFCW) thought about all this?

    Ray–
    I didn’t even notice that typo until you pointed it out.

    Mr. Z.,
    Are you aware that Fry’s Food and Drug, the major grocery retailer in Arizona, is a wholly owned division of Kroger?

  • Ray Van Dune: Oy. Thank you. Fixed.

  • Dave

    Does anyone even know what “queer” means as a clinical term with practical meaning?

  • Dave: It means nothing in a scientific context. The term is one the gay community adopted willingly, to celebrate their sexual choices while actually and surprisingly describing them accurately. (The leftist rule with its manipulation of language has generally been to obscure reality with the choice of words. This time they did the opposite.)

  • Lee S

    I’ve tried not to get involved in discussions recently, but this one deserves an injection of sanity…

    This article is a rare case of both sides being wrong…. The whole argument about gay/queer/whatever is basically redundant, let people love who they want to love, and that’s it.

    There is a huge discussion to be had about gender reassignment and trans.rights. But that is a different discussion. I have many gay friends ( my ex wife is a hairdresser… A cliché that many hairdressers are gay, but true ) and they are to a man and woman, anti gender reassignment.

    But this conversation is about a rainbow… I would never force anyone to wear a republican badge…
    But I would also not get so butt hurt about wearing an apron with a logo that looked kinda a republican badge that I quit my job.

    Some folks just like complaining and kicking up dust…

  • Blackwing1

    To Lee S.:

    Yeah, it’s only a teeny-tiny little swastika on your apron…quit complaining and kicking up dust.

  • James Street

    Uplifting one minute video of Harvard business prof Arthur Brooks on woke corporations.

    Will Hild @WillHild
    @ArthurBrooks on corporations going woke:
    “We need to tell CEOs…3% of your employees are activists…blowing up your Slack demanding that you get involved in a culture war and make political statements. Don’t do it. The rest of your employees are feeling bullied as well…”
    1:28 PM · Nov 30, 2022
    https://twitter.com/WillHild/status/1598066568168345600

  • Doubting Thomas

    Having watched the LBGTQPBCD+++++ destroy the lives (and eventually the employment) of three outstanding and quietly devout Christian employees simply because they would not participate in “celebrations” of perverse behavior **at work**, I celebrate any defeat of these monsters and the embarrassment of their smug CEO enablers.

  • wayne

    Judy Lysy [Feb. 27, 1928 to Jan. 18, 2019]
    “Wearing the yellow star”
    https://youtu.be/SnOGZI8t5KQ
    2:03

  • Alton

    Blackwing Cheers ?
    Wayne Cheers ??

    Daily Mail Origin: – – – – –

    134 and Counting……..Alphabet Soup !!!
    Sir Doubting Thomas !!!!

    And the below still did not list Two Sprit or Twin Spirit…the American Indian Trans Version from at least 1800 AD. (98% M to F)
    (Accomplished in the same vein as the Eunuchs of the Middle Kingdom Court) (a certain Great Admiral — Zheng He
    Chinese explorer 1400s).
    ————–

    EXCLUSIVE: Xenogender, gender outlaw [deleted]: San Francisco’s $1,200-a-month handout to low-income trans people tells them to choose from 134 genders and pronouns (and they can pick as many as they want)

    The application has a total of 97 genders, 18 pronouns and 19 sexual orientations
    Democrat-run city offers targeted benefits scheme to low-income trans people
    One option, ‘xenogender’, means a gender beyond human understanding
    Tickboxes for pronouns include neutral terms ‘ze/hir/hirs’ and ‘xe/xem/xyers’
    And sexual orientations listed include ‘BDSM/kink’, ‘T4T’ and ‘skoliosexual’
    People applying for San Francisco’s new transgender low-income scheme must choose between more than 130 genders, pronouns and sexualities.

    The Democrat-run city is the second in America to offer targeted benefits specifically for residents who are transgender and make less than $600 a month.
    _______

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11439455/San-Franciscos-trans-benefits-application-gender-pronoun-options.html

  • Alton: Adding some asterisks to an obscenity to partly hide it doesn’t cut it for me. You could have simply deleted the words (as I now have) and added an ellipse (…). Or you could have replaced it with “$%#@” symbols, which had been one of the old fashioned ways of dealing with such stuff.

    Be aware and take care in the future. You are warned.

  • Doubting Rich

    I am an atheist. I still would not want to be forced to wear a symbol of a political movement that is at best self-righteous and hectoring but in my opinion bullying, harassing, authoritarian (even totalitarian) and harmful to many of those they claim to support. As well as forcing others into the fetishes of supporters (public displays of sexuality by exhibitionists are sexual abuse of the unwilling viewers) and pushing child abuse, of course.

  • Dale

    I understand that reinstatement is a remedy. Did the two employees who were sacked get their jobs back?

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